


Blindsight

by commodorecliche



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blindness, Established Relationship, Love, M/M, Married Couple, Mention of injuries, Neurology & Neuroscience, Paranormal, Reunions, Shadow Plane, Shadow Realm, Supernatural Elements, and there's a little bit of background erwin/levi, blindsight, car crash, cortical blindness, dark surrealism, i honestly don't know what else to tag this with, love conquers all i guess, marco dies at the beginning but doesn't stay dead ya feel me?, not a main pairing but it's definitely implied, reunions after death, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:06:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7999672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commodorecliche/pseuds/commodorecliche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a car accident claims Marco's life and leaves Jean with a traumatic head injury, from which he mostly recovers, Jean is just trying to pick up the shattered pieces of his life. But on top of having to deal with the loss of his husband, Jean begins to gradually lose his sight: a late onset symptom of the cortical damage he'd suffered from the crash. As his vision of the world around him steadily fades, Jean begins to see that there's more lurking in the shadows of our periphery than we know. </p><p>In a shadow realm of otherworldly entities and lost souls, Jean manages to reunite with the love he lost, while learning that not everything in the shadows is friendly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 01.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution for the [snkminibang](https://snkminibang.tumblr.com)! I really have had a great time writing this story, despite what little time real life has allowed me to have to write it. But I got to write about three things I love: 1) jeanmarco, 2) spoopy things, and 3) neuroscience. 
> 
> I had the honor of working with these three incredible artists: make sure you give them some love! their pieces will be linked as soon as they're posted and available. Now updated with 2/3 art pieces!! Be sure to check out the links below.
> 
> [art by kotetsus/kiraharas](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2F_kotetsus%2Fstatus%2F774622765026508800&t=MzMxOWJjMGRiNjkzMGE0ZjRmYzRjZWExODI5YWQ2MzgzODMzOGQ4ZSw2M3pZa2FIdQ%3D%3D)  
> [art by fitried](http://fitried.tumblr.com/post/150213857403/second-snkminibang-drawing-for)  
> [sonicmoustache](http://sonicmoustache.tumblr.com)
> 
> Fun fact: Cortical Blindness _is_ a thing that can happen after sustaining significant enough damage to the visual cortex of the brain. Essentially, it means that while the eyes are perfectly functional, the parts of the brain that process visual information (most commonly the straite cortex) are damaged and thus can't process the visual input that the eyes are relaying.

I read somewhere that when you lose one of your senses, the others get better to compensate. I don’t know if it’s true, but I certainly have to suspect that it must be, just maybe not in the way I always thought. I don’t really know if my sense of smell grew more acute when my eyes began to fail, or if I could feel or taste any better than I had before, but things did change.

After my sight started to go, everything got a bit...  stranger.

 **==**  

It was a car crash that did it.

God, it sounds so quick and easy, when I say it like that.

But it was a car crash - possibly quick, though certainly not easy. It was an ugly, lonely, midnight wreck on an empty street where a drunk driver rammed into us headfirst.

I don’t remember much. I’m not entirely sure if that’s the head trauma, or if it’s just that I don’t _want_ to remember. Maybe it’s a bit of both, who’s to say, really.

It was lucky we were buckled up…. We were lucky we didn’t fly through the windshield like the sap who’d hit us - that’s what the police and the EMTs had told me once I had recovered enough to talk to them. I just always had to assume they meant that I had been lucky, rather than _we_ , because Marco hadn’t been lucky.

He’d died on impact like the driver that hit us. Buckled up tight in the driver’s seat and dead before the paramedics could even get the door open.

Lucky isn’t the word I would use.

They dragged me into the hospital unconscious, unresponsive, and with an intracerebral hemorrhage bigger than a golf ball from the skull fracture on the back of my head. They said something about how the headrest had dislodged, leaving nothing but the hardened top of the seat to greet the back of my skull. I don’t even really remember the crash… just barely remember the few precious seconds Marco and I had together just before the impact. I hadn’t been conscious for Marco’s last moments, whenever they may have been. Or if I was, I don’t remember it.

It’s not a fact I like to think about.

But it is what it is.

Miraculously enough, and to the apparent surprise of both the attending neurologist _and_ the E.R. neurosurgeon that had drained and repaired the bleed and the fracture as best he could, I seemed to recover just fine. There was fairly minimal damage to my brain, Dr. Smith had told me - although there was some in the occipital lobe - and I appeared to be neurologically intact. Once I’d recovered enough from the surgery, he’d given me a relatively clean bill of health and sent me on my way with some prescriptions and appointments for follow-up visits for the next couple months.

Reiner had been the the one to tell me about Marco.

I’d gone into surgery almost immediately after being brought into the emergency room, and I’d woken up after god knows how long in a dimly lit room with Reiner and Bertholdt both at my bedside. I don’t remember a whole lot about those moments or the details of what was said - I suppose I’ll blame the injury and whatever drugs they’d given me - but I remember when he told me, I remember the grief-stricken look that had crossed his face the minute that I had asked about Marco. .

_“Marco… where is he?”_

I remember the way Reiner hesitated, words clinging to his lips to the point where he’d had to force his strained voice to speak..

_“...He...  He didn’t make it, Jean…”_

**==**  


“So, Mr. Kirschstein, how have things been?”

Dr. Smith speaks to me in a calm manner. It’s almost too matter-of-fact and to the point, and if I weren’t used to him, I’m sure I could easily mistake his tone for cold and removed. But I know better. Despite his almost aloof inflection, his general demeanor is focused on me. His fingers are laced together atop his desk, and his blue eyes watch me with such pointed interest that I can’t doubt the sincerity of his question. I don’t know the man _extremely_ well, but I’d like to think that after our numerous interactions, I’ve at the least come to understand that he’s the type to genuinely care about a patient’s well-being.

I shrug, hesitating in my answer, because ultimately I’m not entirely sure how I’ve been. I avoid his gaze, my eyes glancing around his office at the charts, diagrams, and plaques that line the wall.

“I’m doing okay, I guess… I mean, considering, well, you know…” I trail off, not wanting to mention my deceased husband by name for fear of the emotions that might come with him.

After I answer, I let my eyes rest on the framed diploma that hangs on the far wall. The lettering is small - just small enough to make it difficult to decipher. I’m fairly certain that it says _“Yale Medical School”_ , but my eyes just can’t seem to focus on it well enough to read the tiny print.

“Understandable,” I hear Dr. Smith say.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his hand begin to scribble something down on one of the numerous notepads that live atop his desk. I should probably be paying better attention to him; I’m sure that he’s at least noticed my overall avoidance of his gaze.. I turn my head back front and center to look at him. At the very least, I could act like my focus is where it should be.

“I know you mentioned some headaches and dizziness the last time we talked; still getting those?”

“Uh, dizziness, not so much. But the headaches, yeah, I do still get them.”

Dr. Smith doesn’t look up then, his hand scritching and scratching along the notepad.

“Are they getting worse? Or are they better now that the dizzy spells have subsided? Or are things about the same?”

“About the same, I guess. They aren’t more frequent or anything… but sometimes it feels like they hurt worse.”

That seems to get his attention. Dr. Smith glances up at me with a furrowed brow.

“You haven’t noticed any swelling around the injury, right?”

“No, no swelling.”

“Okay, good. Any blurred vision or balance issues?”

I pause at his question, the words _blurred vision_ ring in my head. I glance back up at the diploma on the far wall, noting quickly that I still can’t fully make out the words on it. My gaze darts back to my hands: I can see the wrinkles of my cuticles and the lines of my knuckles in perfect focus… I brush off whatever concerns I may have had.

The print on the diploma is just small, that’s all.

I shake my head, “Nothing unusual, no.”

“Okay, good,” Dr. Smith hums just under his breath.

He shifts his attention back to his notes. His hand scribbles a few more things, and his gaze doesn’t lift back up to meet mine. The curious side of me leans forward to try to catch a glimpse of whatever it is he’s so intent on putting to paper. It’s likely nothing more than notes about my general demeanor and overall condition, I’m sure - but much like the diploma on the wall, the print is just too fine, and Dr. Smith’s stereotypical doctor’s handwriting certainly doesn’t make it any more legible to me.

I give up my attempted-snooping within a few seconds, slumping back into my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. I’m not a big fan of having notes made about me, even if they’re just about my health, but then again, who is?

I resign myself to watch as he makes just a few more scratches across the pad before releasing his pen and lifting his gaze back to meet my own.

“I don’t think the headaches are anything we need to be overly concerned about at this point in your recovery, Jean. It’s only been a couple weeks, and frankly your injury was nothing to scoff at. I’d honestly be more surprised if you weren’t having _any_ discomfort at all, you know? All in all, I’d say you’re recovering quite well considering the extent of the injury and the damage you experienced,” Dr. Smith picks up his pen, fiddling with it a bit between his fingers before he continues, “Now, if your headaches continue to persist or if they get worse, then we’ll definitely investigate further.”

“Okay, sounds good,” I tell him.

It doesn’t sound good, but what else am I supposed to say?

Dr. Smith takes a moment to flip through the small, bound planner he keeps on his desk.

“I’ve got you down for a follow-up CT scan in about two weeks, that sound right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, so I’m thinking, let’s hold off till then. So long as nothing gets worse, I think we can wait it out till the scan. You agree?”

“You’re the doctor,” I don’t mean to sound as sarcastic as I’m sure I do, but honestly what else am I supposed to say? It’s not like I really know what would be best. I’m starting to feel anxious in his presence. The thoughts of my injury and the accident are bubbling up inside of me and a dull ache at the base of my skull is starting to show itself again.

“I’m gunna give you a prescription for some 800 mg ibuprofens to help with the pain. If those don’t work, give my office a call, and we’ll find something that helps, okay?”

I watch as Dr. Smith scribbles across the prescription pad on his desk before ripping it off and handing it to me.

“And please do let me know if things don’t improve or begin to worsen, okay? Headaches are pretty normal with an injury like this, but if they persist, we want to make sure nothing else is going on. But otherwise, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Make sure you’re resting well, too.”

“You got it, Doc.”

I stand and take the slip of paper he offers me without looking at it, and head out the door, hoping that the headache that’s threatening to flare up with stay behind in Erwin Smith’s office and leave me be.

But it doesn’t.

**==**

I barely make it home, the prescription bag clutched tightly in my fist, before the ache in my head begins to show itself in full. Digging a pill out of the bag, I pop it in my mouth and dunk my head under the kitchen faucet ungracefully to gulp it down. Water drips down my chin and I can hardly be bothered to wipe it away as I make my way into the living room and plop down heavily onto the sofa.

I could go to the bedroom; the bed would probably be more comfortable that the couch. But I just can’t bring myself to. I hardly sleep in there at all, anymore. I don’t like to remember the empty space in the bed where Marco’s body used to sleep. 

The cat’s the only one who sleeps in there now - curling up on Marco’s pillow where she’d never once slept before he died. I’m sure she misses him, and often I’m curious if she ever wonders why Marco hasn’t come home.

I sigh lowly to myself and lay down fully on the couch. I tuck my head against the throw pillow, hoping that its comfort will help to ease the pain in my head, and stare absently across the expanse of the coffee table. My vision is a little bleary now, but I figure it’s just the headache.

A framed photo from our honeymoon stands alone on the coffee table in front of me. Marco’s and my smiling faces beam at me from behind the glass, and for a moment, I’m almost grateful for the pain in my head. It’s a distraction, at least, from the loss. If I weren’t hurting, I’d be mourning, and I honestly think the headache is better.

**==**

It takes a week before things get worse.

My headaches actually have begun to improve, something for which I’m extremely grateful. A combination of the medicine Dr. Smith had prescribed me and the headaches just not coming as frequently has made life a little more bearable. I’ve even managed to go to work a couple of times. My boss, Hanji - always understanding and accommodating - has let me come and go as necessary, emphasizing to me over and over that I could take off whatever amount of time I needed. But the work helps. It doesn’t help a lot, but it still helps - anything to get me out of the house and away from the empty life that I’d once spent by Marco’s side.

It’s a slow change - my eyesight, I mean - slow enough that at first, I hardly want to notice it. You’d think that a change in your vision would be something you’d take note of almost immediately, but you’d be surprised how quickly our brains tend to ignore even the most obvious of problems, rationalizing them away, or filling in the missing pieces.

My sense of acuity goes first. Small print gets harder to read, the details of images more difficult to discern, colors blend together a little more, inanimate objects fade and grow fuzzy, almost as if I’d zoned out and let my eyes unfocus. But things don’t seem to come back into focus no matter how hard I strain.

I brush it off for a while, Dr. Smith’s request to contact him shoved to the wayside, and tell myself that I should just wait until my next scheduled CT. It’s only a week away. Instead, I blame my age. A lot of people in my family had their vision go south in their mid-twenties, I suppose I’m no exception.

But it doesn’t get better.

I leave work early on Friday. After a morning spent struggling to focus on my computer screen and straining to read the small print on the reports that Moblit had left on my desk, I leave with the realization that I’ve accomplished very little and that I’m unlikely to accomplish much more today. There’s dull but manageable ache building up at the back of my head, as the world around me is steadily losing clarity. I figure my best option is to go home, lie down, rest, and wait it out. I’m sure it’ll be better after I relax, that the blur will be gone by the time I wake.

I take a cab home, just in case.

**==**

I don’t even know how long I nap, and frankly I don’t even care.

When I wake, I fully expect to be met with the sight of our honeymoon photo on the coffee table, but instead,  I’m met with… a haze.

The sight in front of me is little more than a blur of colors and shapes that bleed together, the shadows and light mingling with fuzzy, ill-defined edges.

I sit bolt upright on the couch, fingers rubbing at my eyes with sudden frantic determination, as if rubbing them might erase the fog that seems to have settled across the expanse of my house.

My vision had been a little blurry earlier when I had left work, but it wasn’t nearly this bad. I may have struggled to focus on some things, but overall I could make things out. But now it’s just a wash of blurred edges and shapes and I can feel my hands starting to shake as I realize that my rubbing hasn’t made it any better.

I can hardly think; there’s a tight, crushing feeling in my chest as I run through all of the possibilities in my mind. I need to get to my phone and I vaguely remember that I put it on the charger in the kitchen when I got home earlier. I fling my legs down to the floor and stand abruptly. My knee collides blindly with the coffee table as I take a few awkward and hurried steps forward.

“Fuck, fuck,” I hiss, grappling at my injured knee and stumbling past it in the general direction of the kitchen.

Luckily I can still somewhat make out the shapes of the objects around my house, but I keep a hand out to act as a buffer just in case. I hurry into the kitchen, my hands groping across the cold granite of the countertops to find my phone. I grapple at its edges once I have it and desperately try to orient it in my hands.

I press the home button, but pause, realizing quickly that I can’t navigate the screen or the apps. And in this single moment, I have never been more grateful for voice calling. I press the home button a few times until I hear the tell-tale _bloop_ sound off for Cortana.

I speak into the phone as calmly as I can, but the quiver in my voice is intrusive as I give the instruction.

“Cortana, c-call Reiner B-Braun.”

It rings for so long - it feels like it takes an eternity, though I’m sure it’s not even been 10 seconds. When Reiner finally picks up, he sounds a bit out of breath.

 _“Hello?”_ he huffs into the receiver.

“Reiner? Reiner, are….are you o-or Bertholdt busy right now?”

God, I can hear the tremble in my voice. I’m sure Reiner can hear it too, because his tone suddenly falls and grows more serious.

_“Just got back from a run, why?”_

“I, uh…”

_“Jean, are you okay?”_

“Can-Can you take me to my doctor? I’m having trouble… I’m having trouble s-seeing…”

**==**

Sitting in what I can only assume is Dr. Smith’s office, I listen carefully as Reiner sits beside me and Erwin begins to speak to me.

“Okay, Jean, I know this is very overwhelming for you, but can you explain what’s been happening? Vision issues, obviously, but can you describe them to me?” Dr. Smith asks in his normal calm but focused voice.

My fingers shake - they wring tightly together, squeezing each other hard just to try and stop the quivering. If I could see them, I’m sure the skin of my knuckles would be blanched white. Suddenly, I feel Reiner’s hand settle over mine, rubbing reassuringly at my tensed fingers, if only to remind me that he’s there. It helps a little. I force myself to swallow the lump that’s been building in my throat, heaving out a quivering breath.

“Um… My headaches had been about the same, the meds you gave me helped. But… I started having trouble reading small print and, uh, and things like that. It felt pretty insignificant, especially since most people in my family have had their sight diminish around my age… But… But I woke up after a nap today and I couldn’t make anything out… It’s all just… fuzzy and light, like someone’s got a light in my eyes.”

“Can you still make out general shapes or moving things?”

Staring straight ahead at the blob in front of me that I have to assume is Erwin, I nod slowly.

“Sort of. If things are further away, I think it’s harder to tell? I can kind of see your figure right now. But, I remember you had plaques and such on the walls,” I glance around the office, noting the lack of definition, “But I can’t really see any right now, it’s all just… hazy and bright.”

Dr. Smith says nothing for a moment, but I can hear the usual scritch-scratching of his pen moving.

“Okay, we’re going to get you in for a scan today. First though, let me call my colleague in ophthalmology. I want him to take a look at your eyes, as well. I highly doubt this is anything related to your eyes, but I want to rule it out for sure.”

I nod in agreement, because what else am I supposed to do?

**==**

The ophthalmologist is a man of few words, I learn. I can’t tell much about him, his figure little more than a haze, but I do note his apparent small stature when stood next to Dr. Smith. The two of them speak to each other in a casual and familiar way, a tone in their voices that reminds me of the way Marco and I used to speak to each other, and for a moment, I wonder if they’re involved. What few words he has to say, he seems to reserve for Erwin.

“Jean,” Dr. Smith says, “This is Dr. Ackerman. Just stay seated and he’s going to take a quick look at your eyes, okay?”

I nod at him and swallow, my mouth suddenly very dry, my words to reply suddenly stuck on my tongue.

I see a hazy, black figure move into my field of vision, and a small but indelicate hand grabs my chin to tilt my head back.

A bright light shines at me - that much I can definitely tell - but with my vision blanched from it, I can see little else in the way of shapes and figures. But Dr. Ackerman’s hand is still gripping my chin, and his breath and body are still close to me, so I can only assume he’s investigating my eyes closely.

I honestly don’t know if I’d rather this be an issue with my eyes or an issue with my brain. Either way it feels pretty hopeless and I don’t know if one would have better chances of recovery than the other…

After a few more agonizingly silent moments, I hear Dr. Ackerman let out a low sigh. He releases my chin and the light that had previously whited out what limited sight I had left drops away, leaving me with the overall fogginess that I’m calling my vision.

“As far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with your eyes, kiddo.” Dr. Ackerman says.

“I’d thought as much,” Dr. Smith replies before I have a chance to, “I’ve got him scheduled for an fMRI today, but I wanted to make sure this wasn’t something opthalmological. Thank you for checking, Levi.”

“No problem, old man. Call me if you need me.”

“Of course. I’ll see you this evening.”

Dr. Smith says his last sentence with such fondness that for a moment I forget entirely why I’m there. I forget my vision and replace it with the sound of Erwin’s voice as he’d spoken to Levi. So familiar and fond and sincere, that I have to suspect that they’ve been in some sort of partnership for several years, at least. The sound of his words, the reserved affection in his voice despite the professional setting, it reminds me of how Bertholdt speaks to Reiner. Of how Marco spoke to me. And for a moment, the only thing I can feel is envy.

Not anxiety about my sight. Not concern for my future health. Just envy at what they have that I lack now. Envy that they deserved this more than I did, apparently.

I hear a few footsteps, followed by the sound of the office door opening and closing, that shake me from my thoughts. My emotions dissipate, replaced instead by all my previous concerns. With Dr. Ackerman gone, I remember within an instant why I’m here and I do my best to collect myself once again, but Reiner speaks before I can even gather my thoughts.

“So… what does that mean??”

“It means,” Dr. Erwin starts, his voice pausing and replaced by the sound of the leather in his chair moving and squeaking, “this is likely neurological and related to the injury.”

“Is that good or bad?,” I ask.

“Well, neither right now. Let’s get a scan and we’ll go from there, alright?”

**==**

Within the hour, I’m being guided around the hospital, ushered into new and different rooms by people I can’t really keep track of. Before I know it, I’m lying on my back in a machine that buzzes all around my head as they tell me not to move and to simply listen to their instructions to perform certain tasks based on visual information.

I perform poorly, I assume.

Later, goggles are placed over my head, and electrodes on my scalp, and I’m told I’ll be shown different visual stimuli in order to record visual sensory responses from them.

I assume I perform poorly there, as well.

Afterwards, it takes a few hours until we talk with Dr. Smith again - time spent waiting for results and the subsequent interpretation of them by the radiologists and Dr. Smith. But finally, he calls us back - calling on my cellphone, which I reluctantly have to hand to Reiner to answer - and tells us to come back and chat about the results.

Sitting back in Erwin’s office, I can hear him moving about the room before he sits at his desk and begins to type on his computer. There’s the sound of movement along the desk and I hope to god that if this godforsaken lack of sight persists that I’ll at least get better with my hearing and comprehension of sound.

“Jean, I know that uh, that right now you can’t really... see them, but I’ve got your results here. Are you okay with discussing them with Mr. Braun present?”

I glance over at where I know Reiner to be sitting, if only out of habit, before I nod my agreement.

“Alright, so, I’ve got your fMRI pulled up here, and I’m seeing a pretty consistent pattern here with the symptoms you have.”

“Meaning?” I ask, wishing to god I could at least see what he’s gesturing to.

I hear something tap lightly against his computer screen.

“So right here is your visual cortex, it’s located at the back of the head, right where your fracture was. After the accident, you showed surprisingly minimal damage to this area, especially considering the internal hemorrhage and pressure that was on it when you were brought in. Just from what we can see on this scan, it would seem that perhaps the full effects of the damage were just late to set in. You’ve got severely reduced activity to visual stimuli in your striate and extrastriate cortex - these are two areas that are primarily for processing visual information. And your cortical sensory potentials from visual stimuli are severely limited.”

“...I, I don’t know that I understand.”

“Basically, I believe you’re experiencing some late-onset damage to the areas of your brain that deal with vision. Your eyes are functioning perfectly well, they’re receiving visual stimuli just like they’re supposed to be. But the part of your brain that actually takes that visual information and processes it so you can consciously perceive it isn’t functioning as it should be… It could be temporary but-”

“Are you saying it could get better?” I ask, trying to quell the tremor in my voice.

Dr. Smith’s pause before he answers me doesn’t fill me with hope.

“It could… _possibly_ get better. But I hesitate to even say that… This-this sort of damage isn’t wholly predictable. And I mean, even the possible extent of your vision loss is kind of up in the air.”

“So it could get worse?” Reiner chimes in beside me, his voice all seriousness and frankness and I’m thankful that at least one of us is calm.

“Yes, it absolutely could get worse. It could possibly get better. It could stay the way it is right now. Unfortunately, only time will tell. There isn’t really a whole lot we can realistically do at this point besides try to manage symptoms and monitor progress.”

**==**

The drive home takes an eternity. It couldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes, I’m sure, but the time spent in Reiner’s car feels like ages. Reiner says nothing for the entirety of the commute, but neither do I. My head rested against the window, I let my eyes unfocus, realizing quickly that there’s nothing to see in the haze around me anyway, and instead let the movements of the world outside the car window pass by in a blur in my periphery.

Reiner helps me get inside the house, but once inside, I wordlessly shrug off his guiding hands. I take a few uneasy steps before fumbling my way towards to the living room couch. It takes longer than it should, but eventually, I find my way over and settle down atop the cushions stiffly.

For a few moments, I hear nothing, though I know Reiner is still there. I imagine he must be at just a big a loss for words as I am. I can’t say I blame him.

I exhale slowly and reach out ahead of me towards where I know the coffee table should be. It takes a moment, but eventually my knuckles collide with the framed photograph that lives atop the table. In my blind groping, I almost knock it over, but manage to catch it before it can topple.

I clutch the picture in my hands and bring it to rest protectively in my lap. My head hangs to look at it - but I’m met with little more than a vaguely grey and fuzzy rectangle sitting in my lap. Where our figures should be in the photograph are little more than writhing, blackened blobs, and I can’t help the way my fingers tighten and my fingernails scrape along the back of the frame.

Beside me, I feel the cushions dip, and Reiner’s hand comes to rest lightly on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” He asks, although I’m sure he knows the answer already.

I don’t have to say it, but I shake my head ‘no’ anyway.

“It’s… it’s gunna be okay, Jean. No matter what happens, it'll be okay...” Reiner tells me, but his voice lacks the conviction it needs to make me believe him, I’d have to be deaf too not to notice.

I inhale slowly, but can’t stop the way my breath shakes as it leaves my chest.

“This is all I have left…”

My voice is little more than a whisper, and for a moment, I’m not even sure if I’ve spoken loud enough for Reiner to hear me. But the gentle way he squeezes my shoulder tells me he has.

“...This… this is it…”

My fingers trail across the glass face of the photograph and I can feel my stomach churn that I can’t see it, that I can’t feel his skin or hear his voice.

“It’s amazing how quick… how quickly you can forget the sound of someone’s voice when you don’t hear it every day… I don’t. I don’t want to forget his face.”

Against all my desperate attempts to hold it back, my voice chokes in my throat. The burn in my eyes is enough to make me squeeze them shut as Reiner wordlessly draws me into an enveloping hug.

His silence says a lot. For a man who’s usually so loud and outspoken, these moments of quiet tell me that he’s just as lost as I am at all of this. Maybe he doesn’t know what to say, maybe he doesn’t understand this any better than I do… Maybe he’s missing Marco, too. I try not to think about it and instead just let him embrace me, the physical touch of it a modicum of comfort in the haze that seems to have overtaken me.

I let him hug me for as long as he wants, not at all inclined to complain or pull away, and my fingers curl and clutch at the frame sitting in my lap. When we finally separate, I can tell by the cold, clammy sensation around my eyes and cheeks that I’ve been crying. Because of course I have been. But the quiet sniffle I hear tells me that I probably wasn’t the only one.

I push the feelings down - or I try to, at least - my hand once again rushing to wipe away whatever remnants of tears might remain on my face.

I clear my throat and swallow my upset, but say nothing.

A few beats pass between us before Reiner rests his hand on my shoulder once again.

“Jean, do you want me to stay tonight?”

My gut instinct is to shout _yes_ , to beg him to simply stay there and keep me company, to not make me face this lonely, empty house with its fog and shadow and haze alone. But I can’t bring myself to ask it of him.

I shake my head no.

“Really, Jeanbo, it’s no big deal. Hell, I’ll- I’ll call Bert and we’ll both stay tonight. You don’t have to be alone, you know? You don’t have to deal with this alone….”

“I’m… I’ll be fine,” the words feel forced on my tongue. I can practically taste my own lie.

“It’s okay, you know? Jean, it’s okay to to not be fine.”

I don’t reply, tilting my head down towards my lap. My fingers grip the photo tightly, before releasing. My canines dig into my lower lip as I place the photograph back on the coffee table with quivering hands. I don’t acknowledge what Reiner has said. I suppose I don’t because somewhere, deep down, I _know_ it’s okay not to be fine. I know I’m not fine.

Who possibly _would_ be fine in a situation like this? No one human, I’m sure. No one loses their husband, suffers serious brain damage, and begins to lose their vision, and is A-OKAY because of it. I’m awash with more feelings than I know what to do with - grief and anger and indignation because I didn’t deserve this… Marco sure as hell didn’t deserve this.

But amidst it all - mostly, I feel lost. Within a week and a half, my perception of the world around me has gone from blurred to incomprehensible. Within a day, things have gone from fuzzy to a mess of shadow and light that I just can’t seem to focus on or process. I feel lost, and I don’t know which way is up, and I _know_ I’m not okay.

But I can’t bring myself to ask my friend to stay.

I shake my head again.

“Really, Reiner… I’ll be okay. I have Maisy,” I whisper, and even I can tell it sounds forced.

Somewhere across the room, I hear the quiet patter of my cat’s paws against the carpet.

Reiner, when he answers, sounds reluctant and hesitant to accept the lies I’ve told him, but he accepts them none the less. He exhales lowly, and I can tell he is uneasy about leaving.

“...Okay…”

He sounds defeated.

He gives my shoulder another tender squeeze and pulls me into another hug. When he releases me, he tells me that he’s plugging my phone in and is going to leave it right by the couch. He emphasizes more than once that I should call him if I change my mind.

I promise him I will, even though I know I won’t.

I don’t move from the couch as I hear Reiner gathering his things, moving about my home, and preparing to leave. Even as the front door opens and closes, and the house reverberates with silence, I don’t leave the couch.

Straightening my back, I sit rigid and still for a moment. I stare off into the nothingness ahead of me, gazing out at a mesh of color and shapes that I had once called my home. Moments tick by, each one built with the diminishing hope that if I simply stare for long enough, things might come back into focus. But they don’t.

Somewhere, in my periphery, a glimpse of a shadow darts across the corner of my eye, but when I dart my head towards its source, nothing comes into to focus. Not that I had expected it to. If I stare for long enough, I swear I can see the shadows moving and morphing and rippling in the haze, but they can’t be, and I know that. I know how good our shit brains can be at filling in whatever pieces it thinks are missing. My sight is shit right now - and I know it - and whatever it is I think I can see in the nothingness is nothing more than my mind playing tricks on me.

But the logic my brain supplements in place of my sight doesn’t help to quell the quiver I feel welling up inside of me. It shakes its way from my gut to my throat, and begs to be released. But I refuse, squash it down, close my eyes and pretend it isn’t there.

Things are a little better with my eyes closed - at least then I’m met with a familiar sort of darkness, and not the obscured world of shadow, light, and haze that my open eyes meet. At least I know what everything should look like when my eyes are closed.

My shoulders slump as my body begins to slouch back down to the couch. Close to the couch, I hear the tell-tale jingle of Maisy’s collar and I click at her a couple of times, loosely asking for her company. She pads over to me, her little paws making tiny thump-thump-tha-thump sounds across the shag as they approach, and I allow myself to sprawl down to lie fully on my couch.

I could still go to the bedroom, but I just can’t bring myself to go in there.

My head pressed against the couch cushion, I hear Maisy’s soft breath in front of me, and I plaster myself to the back of the couch to give her some space as I pat the cushion. She hops up and lies down, her back against my chest, and I’m thankful for her comfort.

She stays with me for god knows how long - until I feel her body tense beneath my stroking hand. Slowly, I let my eyes open to look into the haze once more. I’m met with the same shadows and shapes I’d seen before - static and vaguely in the shape of my living room, with exception of a few new, large, inky black spots that have cropped up just along the edges of my periphery.

Maisy lets out a chirp, her body tight and ready to move, before she darts down from the couch and out of the room in a chorus of low meows and mewls.

I don’t call her back to me.

The shadows don’t move.

And I close my eyes once again, trying like hell to swallow the lump that has inexplicably formed in my throat.

I just want to sleep. I just want to sleep and hope that when I wake, things will be different. That things will be better.

I know that they won’t be.

**==**


	2. 02.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean's vision may never be what it was before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of my minibang fic! Please make sure to check out the awesome art that's linked in the main notes!

**==**

Weeks go by with no improvement. The best news that Dr. Smith has been able to give me is that nothing about my overall physiological condition appears to be worsening, but it also isn't getting better. My headaches still come and go, and my eyesight is little more than mist and murk, interspersed with shapeless, fuzzy blobs and black, inky spots along the edges. 

I make sure to tell Dr. Smith about the morphing, warbling shapes that always seem to pan across my periphery, the little bits of blackness that creep and lurk just where I can’t fully see them, uninvited and unwelcomed. 

He tells me that hallucinations like these are common in patients with late onset vision loss. 

After a while, I stop expecting things to get better, all but accepting the way my brain consistently attempts to absorb and process visual information and then spits it back out in the most grotesque and unclear ways imaginable. After a while, I just kind of hope that I’ll get used to it. 

But as far as how I function without my sight… well, frankly, overall it’s surprising just how quickly I seem to adapt to my blindness. As I've said, I don’t really know if my other senses get any better to compensate for the vision I’ve lost, or if I simply get better at noticing the little cues around me that I wouldn’t have noticed before. 

I learn to listen for the sound of Maisy’s paws along the floors of the house to avoid stepping on her as I walk. I better learn the shape of my phone’s screen, adapting to where the important things are - like the dial pad and Cortana, so I can still somewhat function and interact with the outside world. Hell, I even relearn the configuration of my home in ways I never had thought of back when I could see. 

The span of the front hallway from the door to the living room is twelve paces. From the point where the hardwood floor shifts to carpet, it’s another eight steps straight ahead to the couch. The kitchen is seven paces directly behind the couch - ten paces to the left if you come from the hallway. It takes about three seconds to drag my hand across the expanse of the kitchen counter from end to end if I’m walking at my normal pace. The cabinet with the dishes is two over to the left of the fridge; the sink two more to the left. 

If I need to go anywhere, typically it’s Reiner or Bertholdt who offer to take me, though a few times I’ve managed to have an Uber pick me up. 

It’s not a good life, per se, but it’s functional. It’s not the life I want, but it’s the one I have now and I figure that I better get used to it, as things certainly don’t seem like they’re going to get any better from here. 

Most nights, I sleep on the couch. I’ve even learned how to avoid slamming my knee against the coffee table every time I get up from the sofa. Pro-tip: the key is moving the table further away from the couch. It isn’t the most comfortable place to sleep - but even now, weeks later, I struggle the swallow the idea of sleeping in my bedroom. 

Part of it is the lingering ache of grief I feel every time I think of the vacant spot in the bed where Marco used to sleep. It’s been weeks now, and one would think I’d be in the process of moving on, and maybe I am, but it still hurts. It still aches deep in my gut, twisting and turning at the thought that Marco will never warm and wrinkle those sheets again. But it isn’t just that. 

Part of the reason I sleep in here is for the openness. There’s a certain breathability in the living room that the bedroom simply doesn’t offer me now. The large windows - floor to ceiling ones that Marco had picked out after we’d moved in - give me a level of brightness and luminosity in the haze that the bedroom doesn’t. When your vision - or what little of it remains - is dependent on the light to make the haze a little less dismal and a little more clear, you learn to gravitate to it. 

The bedroom has too many shadows… far too many inky-black splotches and figures that lurk in my periphery for far too long. Far too many things that I could almost swear aren’t just tricks my mind is playing on me. 

Two nights ago, I tried to sleep in there. 

I had swallowed my grief and had given in to the pain in my back from all my nights spent on the sofa, and I had attempted to sleep in the bedroom. Not prepared to tackle the room alone, I had beckoned Maisy in with me, hoping she might sleep by my side for at least a little while, to fill the void where Marco had once been. She seemed okay with it - the sounds of her cheery chirps closing in on me as I stood in the bedroom doorway and called to her. But she had paused, and I had noticed. I could hear her little paws slowing down as she approached the bedroom, could hear as they oscillated and hesitated just at the threshold before finally relenting and following me in and to the bed. 

I had flicked off the light and settled onto my side, turning over to face Marco’s old spot where Maisy had curled up after a couple minutes of pacing across the top of the mattress. In the darkened fog and haze, I could just barely make out her blob-like shape - just a fuzzy, bleary shadow beside me. I reached out to her, letting my hand stroke across the soft expanse of her fur and listening to her quiet purrs and breaths. 

And it felt nice. At first, I’d allowed myself to simply focus on her presence: the texture of her fur, the rich color of it that I can just barely remember - spackled and tortoise shell, the quiet mewls she makes when she’s content. They had grounded me for the moment, reminded me that some things don’t change, and that things might be okay eventually. 

I had tried to ignore the hazy fog around me - tried to ignore the way the shadows of the bedroom that mingled bout it seemed to crawl and move, their pitch-like tar color that seemed as if it could leave and breathe within the corners of my eyes. 

It had almost worked. I had almost fallen asleep, my hand calm and stilling atop of my cat’s body as she slept beside me. I had almost relaxed. 

But as I had begun to drift off, sleep slowly coming to grasp me, my calm was interrupted abruptly as I felt Maisy tense up beneath my hand. My eyes snapped open at her sudden motion, and I heard her let out hiss and a low growl. I pushed myself up to a sitting position just as she let out another hiss and darted from the room. I glanced around my bedroom - more of out of habit than anything else - and I was almost ready to dismiss her actions as nothing more than the quirks of a cat when I saw it. 

I  _ saw  _ it. 

Not in the corner of my eye, not some blur slinking along the edges of my periphery, and while it wasn't  _entirely_ clear, it sure as hell was the clearest thing I'd been able to see in a long while. 

Amidst the darkened haze that enveloped the room, among the shadows and fog, there it was. Something big and oil-black, its slug-like form lingering up along what I think was the far corner of my bedroom ceiling. 

I remember so vividly the way my breath hitched and caught in my chest, a claw squeezing at my throat as I stared. 

This wasn’t in my periphery. This wasn’t some blurred, out of focus little blob of something or another that would logical exist inside my bedroom. 

I watched it - because what fucking else would I have done? The grey haze morphed and flowed around it, but it stayed exactly where it was. I was waiting for it to move, or to warp in shape or fade like all the other inky, black shadows in what little remains of my sight eventually do. But it didn’t. It stayed right where it was, and I was sure, I had been so sure that I could feel it staring at me with the eyes it didn’t have. 

I didn’t sleep that night, but I didn’t leave the bedroom either. 

By the time morning came, the darkened grey of my sight had morphed back into its usual white haze. And with the light filtering its way into my bedroom, the black, solid figure had eventually disappeared like the rest of the shadows. 

I didn’t sleep in the bedroom the next night - and neither did Maisy.

I haven’t slept there since. 

**==**

A few days after the Bedroom Incident, as I’m not so affectionately calling it, I have a follow up appointment with Dr. Smith, as well as a follow up MRI. Reiner and Bertholdt are kind enough to take me - the two of them luckily free and I think still marred with a weighty sense of pity for me. I certainly hope that they don’t actually feel the way I imagine they do, but who am I kidding? Were I outside of this situation looking in, I’d pity me too. 

Bertholdt and Reiner drive me to my appointments, the car ride full of awkward small talk and meager attempts to make things seem normal. I appreciate their efforts; it’s a far cry from normality but at least they’re trying to move on (or forget) the fact that that my husband is dead and that I’ve become more or less blind in a matter of weeks. 

But for the most part, we ride in silence, my head resting against the car’s window and staring out at the foggy world I can’t take in .

I relish in the motion of it; the motion is one of the few things my periphery seems to be able to detect. Its presence alone reminds me that no matter how trapped or locked down I may feel, stuck in a world of foggy white and grey, the world around me still moves and lives and breathes. It isn’t much comfort, but it’s better than nothing. 

My friends insist on staying with me in the Radiology waiting room for my appointment, despite my protestations for them to go and enjoy some time together while I go through the motions here. We sit together in relative quiet, the sound of magazine pages turning, throats clearing, noses sniffling fill my ears, and I let myself attempt to remember what the normal world is like. 

But I can’t. 

Somewhere off to the right of me, against what I can only assume is the far wall of the waiting room, the black and oil-slick spots of my vision have bled together into a stagnant splotch along the wall. It’s a grotesque little monstrosity of tar and pitch that inches its way across the wall in a way I so vehemently wish that I could ignore. But I just can’t; if I listen hard enough, if I tune out the monotonous sounds of the waiting room around me, I swear to god I can almost hear it breathing. 

I must be visibly tense - fists clenched, shoulders taut, body doing its best to suppress the tiny quivers that threaten to wrack my form - because I feel Bertholdt’s hand settle over mine gently.

Despite the tenderness of the action, I startle at the contact none the less. 

Bertholdt ignores the jolt in my body, and I’m thankful for it. 

Instead, he whispers to me under his breath. 

“Are you okay?” 

I don’t reply at first, brain still focused on the dark little beast that’s threatening to consume the entirety of the waiting room wall. I halfway consider not even mentioning it, because even if I ask my friends about it, I know exactly what they’ll say. They’ll tell me it’s not there, and I’m sure they’d be right. But it’s so visceral and present that I just can’t ignore it. 

I swallow the hardened lump that chokes my voice and direct my voice to Bertholdt. 

“Do you see that?” 

My whisper is barely that, voice uneasy and frantic in ways I had hoped it wouldn’t be. 

There’s a pause before Reiner suddenly chimes in. 

“See what?” 

I cock my head towards the wall to my right. 

“ _ That _ .” I whisper again, hoping to god they’ll notice the persistent  _ thing  _ that is hovering on the plastered wall. 

I know it isn’t real. I know it’s my brain just playing tricks on me, trying like hell to fill in the gaps of the visual stimuli that it just can’t understand. Why the hell am I even asking them this?

“...What, the TV?” Bertholdt asks, and I realize quickly, despite already knowing, that they don’t see what I see. 

“There’s nothing there, Jean,” Reiner says softly. From the sound of his voice, I’d guess he’s leaning across Bertholdt beside me in order to speak with me as discretely as possible. “Just the TV… Is that it?” 

I turn my head towards the wall, hoping that the black thing I had seen might magically take on a more rectangular, television-esque shape if I focus hard enough… but it doesn’t. The slug-like thing with its rippling, undulating edges isn’t a television, and I know that. I watch it for a moment as best I can, and I could swear it’s real and that it knows I’m here. But I don’t say that. 

In silence, I let it sit in the corner of my eye, feeling my pulse quicken as it decidedly doesn’t go away. Hands clenched tightly in my lap, I dare to angle my head a bit more in its direction, and I could swear I hear something gurgling and deep resound in my ears. 

I wrench my eyes away, jaw taut and tense, and quickly note that Reiner and Bertholdt seem entirely unperturbed. 

_ It isn’t real _ . I tell myself.

_ Hallucinations are common _ . 

_ Your brain is just fucking with you, let it go. _

_It's not real, it's not real. It's. Not. Real._

“Nothing…. It’s. It’s nothing. Just the TV,” I tell them, but even I can hear the way my words just barely choke past my lips, “It… It’s the TV. Thanks, guys.” 

_ Liar _ .

**==**

My scan takes way too long, far longer than I'd hoped it would it take. Once inside the machine, I can't quiet the uneasy fidget in my fingers or the squirming of my muscles, too distracted by the darkened fog that overtakes my eyes as they shove into the tunnel for the scan. But, despite it all, eventually it's over.

Dr. Smith tells me even though nothing appears to be getting better, nothing appears to be getting worse either. It's the same news I'd gotten a couple weeks before, and it doesn't slip by me that he tells me the news today in the exact same tone he'd used before. 

Part of me doesn’t believe him. Things certainly _feel_ a lot worse. 

But I don’t tell him that. I tell him my headaches are okay -about the same, but a little better. I tell him I’m sometimes having trouble sleeping. I tell him I’m coping with being more or less entirely blind, and I suppose it’s sort of the truth. Functionally speaking, I  _ am _ coping. Emotionally is a different story, though I have to wonder how interested he would be in that. 

Dr. Smith speaks as though he can read my thoughts. 

“How have you been otherwise? How have you been feeling? I know this is probably extremely hard…” 

I think for a moment of all the nasty little things that live inside my chest. Fear, anxiety, paranoia, and the dismal emptiness as I come to accept the fact that the edges and lines of Marco’s face are fading from my memory. But I don’t mention any of that. 

I tell him I’m fine… and he seems to accept it. I wish I could see the expression on his face, just to know if he’s believed my lies or not. 

I leave with a follow up appointment scheduled and a prescription for something to help me sleep clutched between my fingers. 

**==**

By the time my friends drop me off at home, it’s already evening. They tell me the time whenever I ask then, but most of the time I don't even need to. I can already tell it’s getting dark by the way the normal, bright haze of my vision begins to dim and fade into greyish-black. 

Like they always do, Reiner and Bertholdt offer to stay for a while, or even for the night if I so desire. But I brush them off, telling them I just want some time with Maisy, and that they’ve helped me out enough today. I can hear the hesitancy in their voices as they agree to leave, and I wish so much I didn’t garner their pity at every turn. 

But I don’t blame them. They’re my friends, and I know how much Marco meant to them too… I know they only want to help. 

I shut the door as softly as I can behind them, turning the deadbolt and the handle lock with quiet precision. Moving through my home, I listen for the pitter-patter of Maisy’s feet, and I hear her somewhere in the other room. I'm a bit surprised as I realize that it almost sounds as though she’s in the bedroom. I make my way to her, feeling along the edge of the couch and living room chair, counting my steps (mostly out of habit at this point) until I approach the darkened, empty haze of the doorway that leads to my bedroom. 

I don’t mean to pause, but I do nonetheless. I pause just at the threshold where the living room meets the bedroom and I breathe, looking futilely into the darkness. It’s all blackened shadows and blank, twirling obscurity and I’m halfway debating if I even _want_ to enter. 

My fingers curl against the doorway, nails pressing hard into the wall as I try to tell myself that I’m just being silly. 

It’s just  _ darkness _ . There’s nothing in it. My brain is just frantically trying to cope with the fact that the visual input it used to process doesn't translating anymore. Paranoia, hallucinations… it’s all… it’s all normal. They're all just the symptoms of a fucked up brain trying to fill in the missing pieces with whatever it can. 

I grit my teeth, reach my hand into the room, and flick on the light. 

The light helps - blackened smoke lifted and lightened to grey-white - but I don’t dare allow myself stand there and think about it much longer. I press straight in, hearing Maisy mewl at me as I do, and make a beeline towards the bathroom for a shower. 

I pointedly ignore the splotchy, black spots that threaten the edges of my periphery. 

**==**

The feeling of water is something I’m sure I’ll never grow tired of. It doesn’t really feel different now that my sight is gone, but sometimes I feel as though I can feel it  _ more _ . I like the solitude and comfort it allows me, the shower. I can close my eyes and shove my face into the showerhead’s stream and pretend, if only for a moment, that I’m not blind. 

I can pretend, just for a split second, that my brain still sees, and that perhaps my world were normal. 

I know it isn’t. But it’s nice for the moment of peace. 

I exhale slowly and don’t withdraw my face from the water. I reach out to where I know my face soap is, and lather up my hands. Eyes clenched shut, I scrub at my face, and listen to the sound the water makes as it streams around me.  It sounds like static: a constant  _ schhhhhhh  _ as it pelts against my flesh and the porcelain tub’s floor. 

But something else pushes through the sound - something different and out of place that calls out and invades the relative white noise of the shower. It sounds distant, far away, yet clearly distinct from the sound of the stream of water. It groans - low, drawn out, and distant, just barely an echo on the walls around me - but I hear it. 

_ Jjjjjeeaahhh… _

I freeze as it calls out to me. 

It's a voice. 

It's a goddamn voice; I'd have to be deaf too not to realize that. 

 

My heart lurches into my throat. My movements suddenly choppy and frenetic, I shove my face under the shower's stream - a frantic attempt to rinse the suds away from my eyes - as if it would make a difference to me now whether my eyes were open or not. I suppose my desire to have my eyes open and ready to look around is just a lingering habit, a phantom sense from when I'd actually been able to use them, but I try nonetheless, desperate for them to just  _work_ as that same sound groans out once more.

_ Jjjjeaannn _ . 

My fingers dart up to wipe at my face once more, flinging water and suds away from my eyes as I jerk out from under the water and my head to face the shower curtain. I look intently, dead-set on seeing something besides the fog that lingers there. But there's nothing - or at least, nothing that I can see. It's all just a hazy blur of white and grey, and the bathroom is suddenly silent aside from the persistent water and my haggard breathing. 

“H-hello?” I say to the emptiness, because I suppose my brain is only functioning in cliches, at this point. 

Unsurprisingly, the only reply I receive is silence.

I try my best to still my shuddering breath, staring at the curtain as if I might somehow magically be able to see something. I drag a hand down my face once more and shuck off the water with uneasy fingers, and I attempt to accept the fact that there’s _nothing_ there besides whatever my imagination wants to believe is there. Beyond that curtain is just an empty bathroom, and beyond that is just an empty bedroom, and an empty house.

Slowly, I turn my head back under the water, peeking my eyes open every now and then to get a look at the curtain in my periphery, just in case. I lather up my hands once more and wash my face again, but with urgency in my motions this time. I’m eager to get out of the shower, to get out of the bedroom, and go back to the living room where I feel at least somewhat comfortable. Somewhat safe...

I rinse the soap from my skin and drag a hand through my hair. But my fingers stop short as I hear Maisy suddenly spewing out string of loud, focused meows from the bedroom. Her cries are deep and pointed, thought not necessarily angry or threatening, but I can’t stop the anxiety that claws its way up my throat. Before I have a chance to call out for her, that noise rings out again, louder and closer now than it was before. 

**_Jean!_ **

No mistaking it this time. 

The frightened whimper that leaves my mouth is entirely accidental, and I suddenly can’t seem to control the way my breath is coming out in uneven, shaking huffs. 

With unsteady fingers, I rub my eyes again and wipe away any remaining water droplets that have dribbled down from my hair, before I force myself to open them. I don’t turn my head to look at the curtain, opting to keep my gaze pointed straight ahead instead. But there, in the corner of my eye, just (I hope) on the other side of the curtain, looms a tall, shadow-black figure. 

My breath stops, stomach dropping, and I try to tell myself to just fucking turn my head, to just fucking  _look_. But I can't.

From the obscured image I have of it, I'd dare to say it's shaped almost like a man, but I know that can’t be right. 

_ It isn’t real _ . 

_ Hallucinations like this are common. _

But not auditory ones, right? 

I purse my lips, trying to quell the way my jaw quivers and the way my hands shake, and I turn my head to look to the shower curtain. My gaze turns, and the shower curtain edges out of my periphery and into what had once been my central field of vision, but as it does so, the looming, black figure bleeds out. Its darkened shadows lighten and fade into the grey-white haze as my head turns, as if it had never been there at all. 

I stare straight ahead at the shower curtain for a moment; my brow furrows, and I’m halfway tempted to simply yank back the curtain and see whatever or whoever might be on the other side. But I don’t dare. Instead, as carefully and quietly as I can, I turn my head back and stare straight ahead at the shower wall in front of me, letting the shower curtain drift back into the corner of my eye. 

As I do so, the black figure bleeds right back into my periphery and stays there, right up until the moment when I dare to crane my head back towards the curtain. It disappears once more only as I try to look at it head-on. 

I don't look away from the curtain, to afraid to watch this thing ooze back into the corner of my eye. Instead, I clench my eyes shut and do my best just to breath. 

“It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real…” 

My mouth forms each word carelessly, my voice is a frantic whisper, as if I'm hoping that if I just _say_ it enough, I might somehow learn how to believe it. 

After a few beats, as the bathroom resides under oppressive silence, I crack my eyes open again. I’m halfway hoping that as they open and stare at the curtain, perhaps I’ll see something,  _ anything _ , anything at all in the haze, because somehow I _know_ that it’s still there. Sure, I can't see it head-on, I can't see it if I try to look, but I know it's still there. With a fumbling hand, I grope at the shower knobs and shut the water off. I try my best not to turn my head away from the vinyl curtain, but fr an instant, I have to. I certainly don't miss the way the figure creeps back across my periphery in the split second that I do so, either. 

My breath is uneasy and my heart pounds as I think about the towel that hangs just on the other side of the shower curtain. To get it, I just have to open the curtain and grab it. And that certainly sounds a lot easier than it feels at this moment. 

I reach my arm out to where I know the shower curtain is, but my hand hesitates as it touches the vinyl. What exactly do I plan to do if there actually _is_ something there? I’m not prepared for this, and I know it, and frankly "blind and naked" isn't the best situation to be in if you're hoping to defend yourself. But I can’t just hide in a shower forever, and I know that. A modicum of determination building in my chest, I grip the curtain edge in my fist and try not to think as I wrench it open to reveal… 

Nothing. 

Nothing at all. 

With an urgent grasp, I snatch my towel off the rack and wrap it around my waist. 

From what I can tell, there’s nothing in the grey-white haze in front of me, and even when I crane my head around, the black, humanoid splotch that had marred my peripheral vision just a moment before is absent. I step out of the shower, careful in my movements, but uncaring of the water that still drips from my skin, and I try to steel myself and calm the erratic beat beneath my breast. 

_ It’s nothing.  _

_ There was nothing. _

_ Hallucinations are… are common.  _

I hurry and dry myself and get changed, my motions frenzied just so I can get the hell out of this bathroom and out of the bedroom. Dressed and dried with little care, I hurry out of my bathroom towards the living room. As I make my way through the haze and shadow, I just try to ignore Maisy as I hear her stride past me and begin to meow at something in the bathroom. 

I sleep with the living room lights on that night, barely comfortable or calm as the shadows fade into the haze with the bright of the lamp.

**==**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This miiiiight actually wind up being 4-5 parts, but I'm going to try to stick with 4. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope to have the next part up quite soon. 
> 
> Feel free to check me out on [tumblr](http://commodorecliche.tumblr.com) or on [twitter](http://twitter.com/commodorecliche).

**Author's Note:**

> please forgive any typos, errors, etc. i feel like i've proofread this a million times, and yet, some things can still slip by me. 
> 
> art pieces for this story will be added as their links become available; stick with us! 
> 
> thank you for reading! final chapters will be posted soon!


End file.
